Tagged: inspiration
Patience Isn’t Just a Virtue When You’re Injured.
Recently because I’m a football fan I’ve been reading about recovery of the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. His name is Andrew Luck and he’s a professional athlete who was the next up and coming superstar in the league.
That is, until he badly tore the labrum in his shoulder and had to have surgery. The whole thing was mismanaged by his medical staff and it’s a long story, but the point of the whole thing is this: He did not take a snap last football season and has been out of football for over a year due to rehab.
This is a professional athlete with access to daily physio, the best surgeons in the game and things like stem cell treatments, and he still has not thrown a football in over a year. A year. This is a guy who throws a football for a living and he’s not doing it to let his injury recover for a YEAR.
I’ll ask you a simple question: if he’s taking that long to recover with access to all of those resources, what makes you think that you can recover from an injury any faster?
Typical labrum tear surgery recovery is 3-4 months but can easily stretch into 6-9 months if things aren’t dealt with properly.
Over the years I’ve dealt with hundreds of injuries. One thing that I really try to get across to my clients is that if you are hurt, you need to give your body time to heal and recover from whatever it is. This takes TIME. Usually a period of weeks if not months. For some reason my Type A people seem to think that if they just baby a problem for a couple of weeks and then go right back into doing whatever they were doing before they will be fine.
Or even worse, they do physio but keep on doing the same activity that caused the injury in the first place and expect to recover. I had an example of that just last week and when I pointed it out to my client that not stopping the activity meant it would just get worse again she was for some reason completely dumbfounded.
Does this make sense?
The general guidelines for minor injuries is 4-6 weeks. More severe ones are 6-12 weeks. Surgery is anywhere from 3-6 months at LEAST depending on the issue.
My main point is this: we need to exercise patience as a society when it comes to our bodies.
Whether it comes to recovering from an injury, things like weight loss or achieving a goal like running a marathon, you need to exercise patience to succeed.
Are you acting smart, or making things worse by rushing the process?
Setting a goal for recovery is just like any other goal – there is a timeline and a process involved. Sometimes it means not moving anything for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is moving just a little bit as much as you can as frequently as you can to help the healing process. It can be frustrating and feel like it’s taking forever. But you have a long time to achieve whatever it is you’re trying to do.
If you want to be active and healthy for a lifetime, then taking six months to recover from an injury might represent less than 1% of your athletic or active life over a span of fifty years. You’re not missing anything by taking that time to make sure that whatever happened doesn’t happen again.
Be patient now, be consistent and give it time and you will succeed in your recovery. Rush back into activity and have a setback or make the situation worse and suddenly a six-week process becomes six months.
If an NFL player can not touch a football for a year, you can wait three months to rehab from surgery. Don’t think that your body or recovery process is any different. Patience and consistency wil get you results every time.
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Decide and Commit
As we move into 2018, we all get suddenly motivated to improve our lives and ourselves. For most people this involves fitness. However, my attitude especially over the past couple of years has changed on this topic.
We all basically want to FEEL BETTER. That’s the ultimate driver in life. Whether you think you want to be thinner, faster, have a fantastic relationship, a nice house or whatever it might be – this really means we want to feel good day to day. We want to come home with a feeling of satisfaction and not have negative thoughts. We want to not be tired. We want to get rid of things that cause us discomfort. When you break down living you’re either doing things that are moving you towards better feelings or embracing things that still make you feel crappy.
I’m not going to reiterate the same things you will hear from everyone else. These are things you have heard about a million times. You need to sleep more. You need to cut out toxic things and people. You need to change your work situation if it isn’t fulfilling you. You need to move more. These are basic simple fundamentals that people need to feel better daily and be happy with their lives. And they are much easier to do than you think they are.
The main thing you really need to do is DECIDE to make a change and then COMMIT to it for a period of time – or even the rest of your days. Once you commit and do something for a period of time, often you will realize that either you don’t even miss it, or the benefit of doing or not doing the thing provides you with enough benefit to outweigh the simple pleasure you used to get from it.
For example, I cancelled my cable probably six months ago. I was wasting money and time watching television. Anything I need for entertainment I can get with Netflix and/or streaming shows (for free) the day after. Do I miss it? Absolutely not. Simple thing but it provided a benefit.
I started doing yoga daily thinking I was going to make it 365 days in a row – and then promptly stopped when I went on vacation. However, I still got 20 days in a row under my belt and felt a ton better and still do. I’m going to get back on that train as soon as I can. Is that a failure? I don’t think so. It’s proof to my brain that it’s possible.
My goal for January is to do it alcohol and coffee free. It will help my sleep, save me money and doesn’t contribute anything at all beneficial to my life. And if I can make it a month, maybe I won’t even go back and just stay that way. Maybe I’ll drink occasionally. The point is to make an effort to be consistent and do something beneficial every day – and by the way, NOT doing something is the easiest way to get that done.
Deciding what to do is easy. Committing to it is often harder. My suggestion is to start with something small that will provide an obvious benefit almost immediately. Cutting out one type of food – not a bunch of them. Doing one small thing that will help your sleep like installing a blue light filter or simply cutting out screens altogether before bed. Committing to one small bout of physical activity daily, no matter how small. Any of these can give you momentum and teach your brain that you feel better, and that will make you want to continue.
So if you’re looking for something to do this year, think on how you’re approaching it. Focus on the right things first. Make small steps and just focus on consistency and you will be better off tomorrow than you are today, and then a week and a month from now.
If you enjoyed this, please feel free to like, share and let me know! Until next time.
Starting at the Beginning
Recently I took a course in NeuroKinetic Therapy, which was a great weekend of learning. Not only did I get to experience a great new modality to help my clients but I found out some things about myself.
As practitioners we often overlook little flaws in what we do because we think we know everything. My strength levels are good, my mobility is excellent and I have a great amount of power and endurance. A funny thing happened though.
When I got my deep abdominal layer tested it was a MASSIVE fail in one area. Having the humility to analyze that made me realize that I had to go back to the drawing board and rebuild what I had been working on for my own workouts. And this meant going right back to some very basic exercises that I had been overlooking for years.
One of my roles as a coach is to remind people of basic fundamentals, and I spend a lot of my time during sessions doing just that. Reminding people to slow down, focus on form, even adjusting loads constantly to create the ability to control muscles and joints. More often than not my athletes have overlooked that if they can’t do A properly, then they have no business doing B.
So here’s the question I ask people – are you good enough at the simple fundamentals before you jump into more advanced things when it comes to your training?
I’ll give an example of my runners. So many runners are notorious for simply strapping on their shoes and going out for runs without having strong lower limbs or backs and then wonder why they are constantly getting hurt. My runners get trained like powerlifters in the gym because their bodies HAVE to be able to take a large amount of load constantly. This means they need to be able to have strong backs and hips which means great form during heavy lifting. Then, they need to be able to run short distance consistently day after day with good form and recovery principles in place before expanding their distance and speed. This takes months for many of them, not days or weeks.
If your goal is to deadlift heavy weight, can you even get into lifting position (ie a fairly deep squat) without compromising your spine first? Have you worked on basic position fundamentals enough to then be able to load the bar and try some controlled repetitions?Practice this first and make sure you have it down.
If your goal is to play a sport, can you do the basics like push hard anaerobically for 45 seconds without getting completely winded repeatedly and losing form during your movement? No? Maybe you need to focus on just doing hard repeats before getting back on the ice or track.
Or, if your goal is simply to get into a good exercise habit, can you perform some basic bodyweight movements – at home – for 10 minutes every other day and establish a habit before you even think about joining a gym? This can also take weeks for some people. And before you say an excuse, remember that it’s only 10 minutes. Drop one episode of Netflix or don’t hit the snooze button.
If you have tried to change things in the past and keep going back, sometimes it takes a complete step back to the very start and beginning there again before you move forward. for many this requires some humility, but if it will get you to your long term goal faster and without hurting yourself then it is worth the investment. Nothing in life comes without some hard work over time, and this is usually months, not days or weeks.
So my lesson today is to take a look at your program and maybe take a step back if you’re not seeing progress or you have gotten out of a good habit. Break down what you’re really trying to accomplish and begin with the simplest parts. Once you have mastered that, then you have the right to move onto more difficult parts.
I’m already applying this to my own exercise practice and seeing improvement even after two weeks. You can easily do the same.
By the way, this doesn’t have to apply to exercise only. Whether it be work goals, life goals or even family goals starting with simple fundamentals is always the best course of action.
If you need help figuring out where to get started, I’m happy to help. Reach our at strengthrehabottawa@gmail.com, on Facebook or on Twitter or Instagram @strengthottawa. I look forward to the opportunity to help you move forward.
The One Key to Results
Having been in this training profession for almost fifteen years, I’ve dealt with hundreds of people and helped them get healthier, stronger and feeling better about themselves. I’ve helped people lose 100 pounds, complete Ironman triathlons, recover from what they thought were permanent physical conditions, and given people the chance to live longer. It’s a pretty awesome job.
I get the question all of the time – what’s the big answer? What’s the key to getting through my barriers, getting the body I want or achieving that big goal I have? My first answer is usually that goals should never really end. You achieve one thing and then you keep moving forward towards something else.
Lost the weight you wanted? Great! Now, work on using your new body towards something cool like climbing a mountain or taking up a sport.
Completed that race? Great! When’s the next one. Do you want to go longer, be faster or simply perform better overall?
Got through an injury? Great! Now, can you get better than you were before and make sure that injury never happens again?
But what is the big answer to all of these things? It’s actually one really simple word that when applied can actually guarantee that you will achieve what you want. I’m going to share this powerful word with you in the hopes that it will sink in and resonate and drive you today and tomorrow and from now on towards your goals. And it’s so simple.
Ready? You sure?
Here it is:
CONSISTENCY
This one little concept is what has created most of the success in the world. Thomas Edison when he was inventing the lightbulb (okay, he didn’t invent it but he did develop the first commercially useful one) supposedly made 9,999 mistakes. And he kept going. Athletes at a high level train for YEARS – daily – in order to achieve a high level at anything. Business people who are at the top of the game didn’t get there overnight or by fluke. They have many, many years of 7 days weeks, no holidays and sacrificing to make sure they get to where they want to be.
Most of us simply aren’t willing to do this. We want the easy way, we want it fast and convenient like everything in society has programmed us to be. We want to microwave, not slow cook. We want to get liposuction, not eat right and exercise. We want that text message or email response right away.
One act at a time, one simple little thing at a time – done consistently – ensures that you are always moving forward and inevitably one day you will get to where you want to be. Every workout, every time you cook a healthy meal or don’t eat something you used to, every time you set the alarm early you’re moving forward. And if you stay consistent and just don’t stop then you’re definitely going to get there. It’s really that simple.
Success doesn’t come overnight. It never has and it never will unless you believe in winning the lottery. Those people who are where you want to be got there through hard work and consistency, every time. Nobody was born with a perfect body, nobody was born with a million dollar business. Athletes train since they are children and never take years off.
A pretty simple concept, right? The hard part is applying it. So if you’re working towards something you really, really want (and that has to be the case otherwise you simple aren’t going to get there) just stay consistent. Whatever that means to you. For some of my clients it is once a week, for some it is several times – but they are consistent about it.
So start with the one simple step. A daily act or one small step every day no matter how small as long as it is consistent is moving you forward. And just keep doing it.
I hope this helped you. Feel free to share, like and tweet me out if you enjoy what I share with you and as always, if you have any questions or comments just share away. I look forward to helping you!
Therapy and Exercise Refined 